Diago Little Smasher Guitar Amp Review

Best known for its pedalboard and pedal-powering gear, UK-based Diago has
a self-proclaimed zeal for stripping design
to its essentials and focusing on necessities.
That focus on efficiency is embodied in
Diago’s pedalboard tools. But these days,
the company’s less-is-more design philosophy
is taking shape in even more interesting
ways, like the 5-watt LS01 Little Smasher
guitar amp head—which manages to pack
a lot of tone and utility into a compact
enclosure not much bigger than your average
stompbox.

Diago is not alone in the mini-amp
sweepstakes, of course—the miniscule EHX
22 Caliber and 44 Magnum, Orange Micro
Terror, and Z.Vex Nano Head all specialize
in delivering a lot of punch from diminutive
forms. But the Little Smasher impresses
with a design that’s minimalist, moves easily
from pedalboard to desktop, and opens up
a wealth of amplification options whether
you need a backup rig or an amp you can
toss in a backpack.

Dead Red Simple
The solid-state LS01 Little Smasher does its
business with just four basic controls—bass,
treble, gain, and volume. The active bass
and treble controls each have a sweep range
of -30 dB to +15 dB, and dialing up your
desired level of crunch is achieved through
the gain and volume knobs. Four cascading
gain stages also mean you can reach a rather
saturated growl at mid-field or max the gain
for super-heavy tones.

On the backside of the Diago, things are
equally simple. There’s an input for your
guitar, an output for the speaker cab, an on/off switch, and a 9V DC jack. Luckily you
can hook this little guy up to nearly any
cab/speaker configuration of 4, 8, or 16 Ω
impedance—a distinct advantage when you’re
up against a mystery backline. Few of Little
Smasher’s competitors enjoy this flexibility.

The entire unit is housed in a 14-gauge
carbon-steel enclosure that will definitely
withstand the blows of the road. And at
just shy of 1.5 pounds, the Little Smasher is
heavy enough to stay put without flying off
the desk or cab if you sneeze, but still light
enough to tote in your backpack or shoulder
bag. Of course you can always affix this
miniscule amp to the end of your pedal
chain, which enables fast EQ switches and
other adjustments in live situations (and
Diago also supplies pre-cut Velcro strips for
this very purpose).

Smashing Tone
My first go-round with the Little Smasher
mated the Diago with a closed 4x12 with
Celestion Vintage 30s—an ensemble of
odd visual proportions to be sure, but often
surprisingly capable from a sonic perspective.
With all controls around noon and a
Stratocaster in hand, the Diago and 4x12
yielded a nice mid-level crunch with a
bright and sometimes brittle treble range.
Increasing the bass helped to flesh out the
more fragile aspects of the tone, and it
wasn’t too hard to wrangle a swaggering
Brit-amp tone by playing with the gain and
volume knobs.

Maximizing the gain control delivers a
deceptively large, Marshall-like brawn. And
it’s in these rowdier surroundings that the
Little Smasher shines. Even with less aggressive
gain settings you can get great sustain
out of single-coils and humbuckers. I got
some of my favorite tones by maximizing
the bass and treble controls to +15 dB. This
effectively creates a scooped-mid profile
that works very well with a heavy gain setting.
This EQ setting also enabled me to
clean up my tone by rolling back the guitar’s
volume—a much more effective way to
dial in more chiming tones than trying to
coax it from the amp alone, especially with
a humbucking Les Paul.

The search for a cleaner sound from the
amp meant rolling the gain back to the 8
o’clock position. This was clean enough,
but rather quiet. And unfortunately, the
overdrive tones you get between clean and
full-blown overdrive tend to have a distinctly
solid-state sterility—a common affliction
for many amps of this type.

I also tested the Little Smasher with
a closed back 2x12, which resulted in a
more compressed overall tone that was a
better match for the Diago. Pedals worked
more effectively with the Little Smasher in
this context too—bettering the Celestion-equipped
4x12 and its darker voice as a
best mate for the Diago and a more pedal-oriented
rig. Overdrives could still drive
the Little Smasher to a crunchiness that
bordered on clipping, especially at higher
gain settings.

The Verdict
Diago’s Little Smasher is an achievement
in amplifier portability with some pretty
decent tones, including some crunchy
sounds that will make you believe you’re
using something much bigger. While few
players will end up using the Smasher as
their main amplifier, save for the confines
of very small clubs and coffee houses, it’s a
fantastic backup amp, a practice workhorse,
and a potentially cool recording tool. With
a street price of about $190, Diago falls
about in the middle of the pack of the mini
amp category, though its robust design
suggests that it may be among the most
bulletproof mini amps out there. If you’re
just looking for a small amp on the cheap,
any number of solid-state combos can do
the trick. But if portability is at a premium,
or you’re a player that does a lot of fly-in
shows where back line is a guessing game,
the Little Smasher is an inexpensive and
sweet-sounding bit of insurance.

Having rambled across the globe for a few years, Matthew Holliman recently returned to San Francisco, CA. He has a minor obsession with succulents and loose-leaf tea, and major obsessions with silicon transistors and English Bulldogs. When not touring or recording various projects, he’s likely to be found combing backwoods territories on Craigslist for the Holy Grail of guitar gear. The definition of the Holy Grail changes daily. His favorite color is aquamarine, and a few of his favorite books are Dune, Play it as it Lays, and Sometimes A Great Notion. Black licorce is his archenemy. Black Sabbath, on the other hand, rules.

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